GAIN makes diverse selections for its third round of awards this year

The Department of Energy's Gateway for Accelerated Innovation in Nuclear has recently awarded four third-round fiscal year 2026 vouchers to support the development of innovative nuclear technologies. Each company will get access to specific capabilities and expertise in the DOE's national laboratory complex-in this round of awards Idaho National Laboratory, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and Sandia National Laboratories are named-and will be responsible for a minimum 20 percent cost share, which can be an in-kind contribution.

The awardees: Two of the companies receiving awards are working on optimization, reliability, and verification of their reactor designs; one company is developing its uranium conversion process; and one company is developing its neutron detector design.

Aalo Atomics, of Austin, Texas, will collaborate with ORNL to perform generational risk analysis for Aalo-1, a 10-MWe sodium-cooled microreactor. Using INL's Event Modeling Risk Assessment using Linked Diagrams (EMRALD) software, the team will optimize the reactor's design, economics, and operational reliability. Aalo-X, the company's experimental reactor designed to help license and commercialize Aalo-1, is in the DOE's Reactor Pilot Program, and yesterday Energy Secretary Chris Wright said that reactor is expected to reach criticality in the next few days.

OrganiCore Nuclear, of New York, N.Y., will collaborate with ORNL to experimentally validate low-energy neutron interactions with the organic coolant used in the company's small modular reactor, which will support its design, safety analysis, and licensing.

Raven-Flint Nuclear Corp., of Idaho Falls, Idaho, will collaborate with INL to develop an integrated mass-balance, material control and accountancy, and stream characterization for the company's uranium conversion pilot plant that will use a process that does not require elemental fluorine, which is expected to reduce costs, improve safety, and simplify permitting.

Srijan LLC, of College Station, Texas, will collaborate with SNL to grow high-quality thick-film hexagonal boron nitride, eliminating carbon impurities that degrade charge collection in the company's N800 semiconductor neutron detector, which is currently in a proof-of-concept stage. At full scale, Srijan expects the design to operate at temperatures that significantly exceed those allowable for helium-3 and scintillator designs, with the potential to improve reactor safety through real-time neutron flux monitoring.